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Black Body Radiation
Michael Fowler, University of Virginia, 9/7/08
Query 8: Do not all fixd Bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit Light and shine;
and is not this Emission performd by the vibrating motion of its parts?
Isaa

Frames of Reference and Newtons Laws
The cornerstone of the theory of special relativity is the Principle of Relativity:
The Laws of Physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference.
We shall see that many surprising consequences follow from this

More Relativity: The Train and the Twins
EinsteinsDefinitionofCommonSense
As you can see from the lectures so far, although Einsteins theory of special relativity solves the
problem posed by the Michelson-Morley experimentthe nonexistence of an etherit is

Adding Velocities: A Walk on the Train
TheFormula
If I walk from the back to the front of a train at 3 m.p.h., and the train is traveling at 60 m.p.h.,
then common sense tells me that my speed relative to the ground is 63 m.p.h. As we have seen,
this obvi

Special Relativity: Synchronizing Clocks
Suppose we want to synchronize two clocks that are some distance apart.
We could stand beside one of them and look at the other through a telescope, but wed have to
remember in that case that we are seeing the cloc

The Speed of Light
EarlyIdeasaboutLightPropagation
As we shall soon see, attempts to measure the speed of light played an important part in the
development of the theory of special relativity, and, indeed, the speed of light is central to the
theory.
The

Special Relativity
GalileanRelativityagain
At this point in the course, we finally enter the twentieth centuryAlbert Einstein wrote his first
paper on relativity in 1905. To put his work in context, let us first review just what is meant by
relativity in

Special Relativity:
SpecialRelativityinaNutshell
Einsteins Theory of Special Relativity, discussed in the last lecture, may be summarized as
follows:
The Laws of Physics are the same in any Inertial Frame of Reference. (Such frames move at
steady velociti

The Michelson-Morley Experiment
TheNatureofLight
As a result of Michelsons efforts in 1879, the speed of light was known to be 186,350 miles per
second with a likely error of around 30 miles per second. This measurement, made by timing a
flash of light tr

Multiparticle Wavefunctions and Symmetry
Michael Fowler
University of Virginia
Two Electrons in a One Dimensional Well
So far, we have used Schrdingers equation to see how a single particle, usually an
electron, behaves in a variety of potentials. If we a

Mass and Energy
Michael Fowler, University of Virginia 3/1/2008
Rest Energy
The fact that feeding energy into a body increases its mass suggests that the mass m0 of a
body at rest, multiplied by c2, can be considered as a quantity of energy. The truth of

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Remarks on General Relativity
Michael Fowler
University of Virginia
Einsteins Parable
In Einsteins little book Relativity: the Special and the General Theory, he introduces general relativity
with a parable. He imagines going into deep

Special Relativity Lab & Gedunken Experiment
1. When a steel cube is traveling near the speed of light, then length, mass, volume and
density would have a drastic change. The shape of the curve in the length vs. velocity and
volume vs. velocity graph look